I find it ridiculous just how many people are flinging "If it takes two weeks to be fun, then it's not fun." or similar. I just can't help but laugh at the trend for people to instantly whine about a game being "too linear" and as soon as a game which isn't linear at all is put in front of them they can't comprehend having to make their own decisions about what to do.
EVE is the polar opposite to those games which hold your hand; taking you from place to place and showing you precisely when, where and how to have fun that everyone hates, including Yahtzee, because they don't give you any sort of freedom or control.
EVE is far from perfect, I'll definitely admit that some polish would be preferred over yet another content update but that's not the debate here. The reason that people log into a 14 day trial and don't have fun for an entire two weeks is because they think that the game is going to grab their hand and point into the horizon, shouting "THE FUN IS THAT WAY!". It's not.
With EVE you have to make your own fun. Before you start shouting about "Why would I pay for a game where I have to make my own fun, the game should be fun in it's own right!"; that isn't what I mean. EVE doesn't have quests, levels or even a significant loot table like WoW. There are no raids to grind and epics to collect. There are no set PvP arenas that you can go to.
EVE gives you the freedom that everyone seems to be looking for in MMOs, but perhaps it gives you too much. The average gamer will be thrown out into the cold at the start of the trial going "what do I do?!" and will ultimately miss out because they think that they HAVE to sit and mine ore in their newbie system or do dull repetitive missions.
I have no mining skills and I have never done any missions past the ones in the tutorial and one or two level one missions. The fun in EVE is whatever you make of it, you make your own goals. As an example, I PVP almost exclusively in tech 1 frigates with tech 1 equipment. The sort of thing that even a new player with a 14 day trial account can afford with a few hours of mining, mission running, scavenging or pirating. The trick is that I have a small pack of friends in similar ships, each having fittings which complement each other. We can easily take out small groups of cruisers, battle cruisers and even the odd battleship. You can do this right off the bat, all you need is a few friends and someone to give you a little bit of advice about which skills do what. It's not WoW; the higher "level" players are not immune to the lower level ones and they can be taken out easily with careful planning. We can win because our ships are small and fast, thus difficult to hit with larger, slower guns; and most of our ships have bonuses to electronic warfare, allowing us to effectively cripple our target, disable his weapons and hold him there until we pop him. It is far from just targeting, activating weapons and seeing who dies first; it's just a shame that the learning curve is so immense. I understand why it could be daunting to most people.
The only other thing that I really have to say in my defense is that I don't really care whether anyone here likes EVE or not. It's not the best game in the world and it certainly isn't everyones cup of tea; but I like it and that is all that matters. The reason that I am defending it so enthusiastically is not because of some desire to convince you that I am right and your are all wrong. It's because I have had a great time playing EVE once I stopped trying to play it as a single player game and I see reviews such as this one who don't even give it a chance and I feel that those people are totally missing out of something which they could be enjoying as much as I have enjoyed it. It's not in defense of the game or of my hobby, if you played EVE in the way that I am describing it and still didn't like it then that's fine. I just don't like when people miss out, is all.
This, strangely, is the first time that Yahtzee hasn't given a game a fair review. What he has done here is like playing portal and trying to play it without portal gun. You've missed out on the whole point of the game. EVE is ABOUT the social aspect, and the teamwork you get from joining a corporation (just another name for a guild, nothing like a second job at all.)
Never mind though, it was funny and I suppose that's the point. I'm hardly going to stop tuning into zero punctuation over it.
